Tell Me a Story
by Cantica10
Summary: When Mabel suddenly gets sick, Ford has to step up and take care of his great niece. Mabel and Ford fluff.


**I am still on a major Ford and Mabel fluff kick. It's amazing to write. And just. Fluff. Awkward, wonderful, nerd fluff.**

 **Enjoy!**

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"I'm going to the store," Stan announced gruffly as he came into the kitchen, car keys in hand. Dipper and Mabel looked up at him from their scrounged-up dinner of leftovers and various other foods they'd found in the cupboards. Dipper was grazing at a plate of mini pizzas from the freezer and Mabel had found a can of tuna and made herself a sandwich.

"Again?" Dipper asked, raising an eyebrow. "Didn't you just go a couple days ago?"

"Yeah, well, I forgot some stuff," their uncle grunted, heading out the door. "Don't wait up. I might be a while."

Mabel chewed thoughtfully at her sandwich, listening to the sound of Stan's car as the engine started and he pulled it onto the dirt road leading from the shack into town. She swallowed. "I guess he needs another break from Great Uncle Ford."

Dipper sighed. "I wish they would make up already. I don't think I can take listening to another one of their stupid shouting matches."

"So how long do you think he'll be gone this time?"

"Who knows?" Dipper pulled apart a couple of his pizza bites. "Last time it was hours. He might not even come back until morning."

"Boo," Mabel pouted, finishing off her sandwich. "Fighting is stupid."

"No kidding," Dipper said, stuffing the last two pizzas into his mouth. After a minute when he'd swallowed, he pushed his chair away from the kitchen table. "Attic golf?"

"Attic golf," Mabel agreed, getting up and racing out of the kitchen with her brother.

"Whoa, Mabel, what happened? That was an easy shot," Dipper commented half an hour later after watching his sister swing her putter, nearly missing the ping-pong ball they were using and barely catching it on the end of her club, sending it rolling under her bed.

Mabel swallowed hard and crouched to the ground. She had first noticed her stomach cramping a few minutes ago but thought it might pass, but now her head was killing her and the world was going a little topsy-turvy. "I don't feel too good," she mumbled, holding her stomach as it lurched again.

"You're sick?" Dipper asked, immediately concerned and a bit confused. They always got sick together. It was one of their twin things. But he didn't feel bad at all. He rushed to Mabel's side and put a hand to her forehead. He pulled it back, looking at her in shock. "You're really hot, Mabel!"

She giggled. "Thanks, Bro-bro," she joked, before her stomach rolled again and she clasped a hand to her mouth to keep from vomiting. She groaned. "I think I'm going to throw up."

"Crud," Dipper said, pulling Mabel to her feet and grasping her hand, leading her hastily from the attic and down the stairs until they reached the bathroom. She collapsed next to the toiled, dry-heaving and looking utterly miserable.

"I'm going to get Grunkle Ford," Dipper said anxiously, and Mabel grimaced at the thought. Their elusive Great Uncle Ford liked Dipper a lot more than her, or at least it seemed that way to her. She wasn't too enthusiastic about having him come up to see her in this state, but considering her stomach seemed to be holding a revolt, she didn't argue, and her brother disappeared from the bathroom.

Dipper raced to the gift shop and punched in the code to the vending machine that would open the hidden door and rushed through it, calling for his great uncle as he descended the stairs. He didn't receive an answer, so he assumed Ford was in the lab.

The elevator ride seemed slower than usual, and when the doors slid open he was greeted with his Grunkle Ford's exasperated, vaguely angry expression. Immediately, Ford began to lecture, "Dipper, if I've told you once I've told you a hundred times! I don't want you coming down here without my express permission!"

"Grunkle Ford, it's an emergency!" Dipper interrupted him.

Ford paused, worry settling in. "What's the matter? What happened?!" It couldn't be anything good; that was for sure. Nothing good ever seemed to happen to the Pines family.

"It's Mabel—"

"Is she hurt?!"

"No – but she's sick. She's got a fever, and she's throwing up," Dipper explained frantically. "I don't know what to do!"

"Come on," Ford said, immediately getting into the elevator with his great nephew and pressing the buttons that would take it up. "Where's Stanley?"

"He went to the store," Dipper mumbled. "Or at least, that's where he said he was going."

Ford made a noise of disapproval. "I can't believe he's still pulling that pathetic stunt after thirty years." The elevator slid open and he swept up the stairs, his coat billowing behind him. Dipper had to run to keep up.

When Ford came to the bathroom, he found his niece curled up on the bathroom floor on top of her sweater, shaking and crying. "Mabel?"

She moaned and curled into a tighter ball, clutching her stomach. "I think I'm dying," she whimpered.

"Can you help her, Grunkle Ford?" Dipper asked anxiously, peering at his sister from behind his great uncle.

"Oh, dear," Ford muttered under his breath, approaching Mabel and crouching down next to her. "Clearly, you've been throwing up. What else hurts?" he asked.

"Head. Stomach. Everything," Mabel mumbled, her expression twisting into one of pain as her stomach cramped up again. "Owowowow…"

Ford reached out a hand and pressed it against Mabel's forehead. He whistled. "That's quite a fever you're sporting there." He turned to Dipper and asked, "Does Stanley keep any thermometers anywhere? I need to know how bad this is."

Dipper opened one of the bathroom drawers and pulled a glass thermometer from it. "Found this when I was looking for band aids a couple weeks ago," he said, passing it to Ford.

His great uncle took it and returned his attention to the sick, crying girl next to him. "Mabel, you've got to sit up for a minute, okay?"

"Hurts too much," she moaned, shaking her head.

"I hate to tell you this, Kid, but curling up into a ball is probably making it worse," Ford said, gently tugging Mabel up into a sitting position even as she mumbled protests. "Now, come on. Open up."

Mabel sighed and opened her mouth enough for Ford to slip the thermometer beneath her tongue. Ford looked his niece up and down as he waited for her temperature to register. Her skin was covered by a sheen of sweat and she was paler than usual, all except for an angry red patch he could see at her collar peeking out from behind her shirt. "Mabel, what's this?"

She looked down at the rash and her eyes widened, which indicated to Ford she hadn't known there was a problem.

"What _is_ that?" Dipper asked, his notice also drawn to the red patch of skin at his sister's collar. "Mabel, did you roll in poison ivy again or something?"

She mumbled something nearly unintelligible with the thermometer in her mouth, but Ford thought it was something along the lines of "That was _one_ time."

"No talking," he said harshly. "Your temperature hasn't registered yet. I am concerned about this, though," he pointed at the rash. Careful not to startle his niece, he pinched the fabric of her shirt and tugged it down slightly, enough to see that the angry red patch spread across her chest. "It looks almost like an allergic reaction," he muttered.

"But we're not allergic to anything," Dipper commented, growing more worried for his twin. "Is she going to be okay?"

"Of course she will," Ford assured his nephew, pulling the thermometer from Mabel's mouth and checking the reading. "Now, Dipper, I know you're worried about your sister, but it's very hard to think with you hovering over me."

Dipper looked unsurely at Mabel. "Um… I'm not sure…"

Mabel smiled feebly at her brother. "I'll be fine, Bro-bro," she said weakly. "Go watch that bad mummy movie that was going to be on the black and white channel. You can tell me all about it later!"

Dipper sighed, but trudged out of the bathroom, and Ford let out a long breath. He felt just a little bad for making his nephew leave, but it was much easier to process things without the audience. Still, he remembered what it was like to be a kid, worried about his twin when Stanley got sick and he could do very little to help.

Ford looked back to Mabel, who was holding her head miserably. "101 degrees," he told her. "When you get sick, you certainly seem to do it in style."

She merely groaned.

"I know, it feels awful," Ford said sympathetically, reaching up and placing the thermometer on the bathroom counter. "It looks like the flu," he commented, rubbing his chin in thought. "Except for the rash, but that might be something else. When did you first start feeling sick?"

"Fifteen minutes ago?" Mabel mumbled, lowering herself back onto the floor and curling up again. "I don't know."

Ford's brow furrowed in thought. "Far too sudden for the flu," he muttered. "Wait. Mabel, did you have dinner tonight?"

"Yeah," she said weakly. "I had a sandwich before Grunkle Stan left."

"What sort?"

"Tuna."

Ford sighed. "Well, the good news is that I know why you're sick. Food poisoning strikes fast and hard."

"No kidding," Mabel groaned. "Is there bad news?"

"You'll probably be sick for a couple of days."

She moaned and buried her face in her bundled-up sweater. "I don't want to feel like this for two days."

"It'll be a little better after you purge it from your system," Ford assured her. "Your fever will stick around while your body fights off the bacteria, but you'll stop feeling so sick after all the infected food you ate is gone."

As he said the words, Mabel felt her stomach lurch violently and she shot up, scrambling for the toilet and retching. Ford grabbed a majority of her hair and pulled it back for her, waiting until she threw up again. She sat back and started crying, her small body trembling. "I hate this."

Ford sighed and rubbed her back. She looked up at him, a flicker of contemplation in her gaze before she lay back down, resting her head on her great uncle's knee and shutting her eyes. Ford stiffened. Being clinical was his area, and helping with the technicalities; being comforting, not so much. Still, he awkwardly patted her head, even running his fingers through her hair, detangling a few strands.

Gradually, Mabel's violent trembling subsided. She tried to focus on the gentle tugging sensation at her scalp, and by slow degrees her stomach cramps decreased in their intensity until it was almost tolerable.

"Are you feeling better?" Ford asked, taking note when Mabel let some of the tension out of her muscles.

"A little," she mumbled, letting out a long sigh. "I don't think I'm going to throw up anymore."

"Okay; then let's get you off the floor," he said, carefully shifting his body so he wouldn't jostle her too terrible. She sat up, giving him room to get to his feet, and she grasped the edge of the tub and tried to stand, but her legs felt like jelly. She collapsed back to the floor.

"I think I'll just stay here," Mabel mumbled, burying her face back in her sweater.

"Certainly not," Ford scoffed, kneeling down and picking his niece up. She made no complaint; in fact, as her uncle carried her out of the bathroom she let out a small giggle. "What are you laughing about?" he asked, confused.

She smiled and buried her face in the folds of her uncle's trenchcoat. "I feel like a princess," she informed him, indicating the way he was carrying her. Her head throbbed painfully at that moment and her smile melted into a grimace. "A really sick princess."

Ford mounted the stairs to the attic, and Mabel briefly considered that she didn't think he'd been to the room she and Dipper shared before her great uncle had carried her through the door. He set her down and made sure she wouldn't fall over on her unsteady legs and ordered, "Get changed for bed. I'm going to go find some medication."

"Okay," Mabel nodded, and moved to get out of the clothes she was wearing and into her purple nightdress with the save icon on the front, and decided to pull on a pair of fuzzy pink socks before climbing into bed, waiting for her great uncle to return.

He came back in a few minutes later, a glass of water in one hand and a white bottle of pills in the other. "I swear, nothing has changed… still doesn't know how to keep all the medicine in one place," he was grumbling to himself as he approached his niece. Mabel sat up as he approached her bedside and he handed her the water glass before shaking two pills from the bottle and setting it aside. Mabel held out her hand and Ford dropped them into her palm. "These should help," he said, and she nodded and swallowed them without question.

She downed the entire glass, initially gulping at the water before Ford had told her to be more careful before she exacerbated her nausea, and she had slowed down to careful sips. She put the glass on her bedside table and Ford reached out a hand to feel her forehead again. It was still hot, but she wasn't burning up anymore.

"Well, then," he said, tugging at the collar of his sweater. "You seem to be situated, so I suppose I'll head back downstairs—"

"Grunkle Ford, will you tell me a story?" Mabel interrupted, and he paused. She hadn't called him "Grunkle" before. That was a title she had always reserved for Stanley.

It seemed she had decided in the course of the last thirty minutes to afford him the same level of trust as she did his brother, and for some reason that made his heart swell with pride, and made him that much fonder of his great niece. So he decided to indulge her. "A story, huh?" he repeated, looking around for a chair he could pull up to Mabel's bedside and seeing none, so he admitted defeat and sat at the foot of her bed instead. "What kind of story?"

She took a moment to think about this and requested, "A story about you and Grunkle Stan? From when you were my age?"

It took all of Ford's strength not to groan, but he kept his composure for Mabel's sake, fearing he might upset her if he refused. He let out a long sigh through clenched teeth. "Alright," he succumbed, rubbing his jaw as in thought. He would have to be very careful not to sound too bitter. "Give me a moment to think."

As he searched his memory banks for a good enough story to tell his niece, she crawled out from her covers and positioned herself in a similar way to how she'd been in the bathroom, with her head using Ford's knee as a pillow. He absentmindedly patted her head.

"Well… I remember one afternoon we both got into a lot of trouble over a broken window," Ford said, deciding that memory was innocent enough.

"You have to start with _once upon a time_ ," Mabel mumbled. "Otherwise it isn't a story."

"Alright, Kid, you got me," Ford smirked. He really did like his niece's spunk. "Once upon a time there were two kids named Stanley and Ford. Is that better?"

"Much," she said approvingly, snuggling closer to her great uncle.

"Stanley and Ford were twins. Ford liked to read and Stanley liked to roughhouse. They shared a bedroom their entire lives, and one day when they were eleven Stanley got bored. Ford had a new comic book, and he was sitting at his desk reading while his twin tried getting his attention. He wanted to go exploring the beach, but Ford was very happy where he was."

So far so good. Mabel seemed to be enjoying it so far, at least, but she appeared to be half-asleep.

"Stanley started throwing things at Ford to try to get him to notice him. First it was a balled up piece of paper, but Ford ignored it. Then a pillow hit Ford in the face, and he didn't like that at all. He looked up to yell at his brother just as Stanley was gearing up to throw one of their toy cars, a little metal fire truck at him."

"Oh, no," Mabel mumbled, her voice a cross between tired and amused.

"Oh no indeed," Ford said, running his fingers through her hair. She mumbled her approval. "Ford ducked just as Stanley threw the toy fire truck, and it went straight over Ford's head and through the window. Not _out_ the window, mind you, but _through_ the window."

Mabel giggled. "Grunkle Stan broke a window?"

Ford nudged her playfully. "Let me finish telling the story. But yes, Stanley broke the window. There was a loud crash and the twins knew they were in big trouble when they heard their mother yelling from downstairs, asking what had just happened, and she came running up the stairs to find her sons looking mildly terrified standing beneath a broken window with their toy car set missing a fire truck. And before Ford could try to explain rationally what had happened, Stanley pointed to him and exclaimed, 'The window wouldn't have broke if Ford hadn't ducked'!"

Mabel snorted with amusement as Ford said, "The end."

"That was funny," Mabel said, sighing contentedly as she shut her eyes. "Thanks, Grunkle Ford," she whispered. "Good night."

Ford continued combing her hair through his fingers as she fell into sleep, and felt her forehead again. Still warm. "Poor kid," he mumbled, looking down at his niece. She looked much more peaceful now that she was asleep, lost to dreams instead of the harsh reality of her food poisoning. "Sleep tight, Mabel," he whispered.

When Stan returned home near eleven p.m., he found Dipper sleeping on the floor of the living room with the television on the black and white channel. There were credits rolling on the screen, indicating Dipper had been in the middle of a movie when he'd nodded off. Stan nudged his nephew with his foot. "Hey, Kid. Wake up," he said, not bothering to lower his voice.

Dipper's eyes shot open and he sat up, looking startled. "What's going on?!"

"Calm down, Kid, it's me," Stan said. "What are you doing on the floor? And where's your sister?"

Dipper rubbed his eyes. "Oh, yeah. Grunkle Stan, Mabel got sick!"

"She _what_?" Stan asked disbelievingly. "But she was fine when I left!"

"I heard Grunkle Ford say something about food poisoning," Dipper said. "But he said it was hard to think with me hanging around, so…" his face fell as he recounted some of the night's events to Stan, feeling dejected that Ford had chased him off.

Stan noticed this. "Don't feel bad, Kid. Ford's always hated having an audience when he's trying to solve a problem. So, where is my idiot brother? And where's Mabel?"

"I don't know," Dipper mumbled, clambering to his feet. "I came out here to watch a movie and fell asleep."

Stan sighed. "Well, we've got to find Mabel at least," Stan said. "If Poindexter knows what's good for him, he'll have gotten her to bed."

Dipper followed Stan up the stairs to the attic, where his great uncle stopped short in the doorframe. "Well, would you look at that," he muttered.

Ford was still sitting on Mabel's bed, his head resting on the wall. He was fast asleep, snoring softly, and Mabel was curled up next to him, using his leg as a pillow, looking perfectly happy.

Dipper peered around his uncle and grinned. "Looks like things went pretty okay."

Stan rolled his eyes. He tried not to be bothered by it, but deep down he was jealous of Ford. Clearly, Mabel was very affectionate with him now. He had taken a lot of pride in being Mabel's undisputable favorite uncle, but it seemed now he was going to have to compete with his brother for her affection. "Get into bed," he grunted at Dipper, turning around to head back downstairs. "And leave them be."

Stan descended the stairs, unbuttoning his suit jacket. He'd check in on his niece tomorrow morning. For the time being, though, he had to admit that Ford had done good.

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 **For those of you watching for my darker GF fic, "When I Fall," chapter 12 is in progress. It's just extremely stressful to write at the moment, and this is easy and fun. So when I take breaks from studying organic chemistry and human anatomy, this is the writing I turn to for stress relief...**

 **At any rate, I hope this was to your liking, and I'd love reviews!**

 **Thanks for reading!**


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